


A Mirror, a Name, It’s All the Same

by bratanimus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ahch-To, F/M, Identity Issues, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Post-War, Romance, Smut, let the past die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 02:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15962426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bratanimus/pseuds/bratanimus
Summary: Their story isn't over, even if the war is. But there’s a difference between indulging a fantasy through the Force and consummating a bond in the flesh. Which they both know they’re here to do.





	A Mirror, a Name, It’s All the Same

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to mrstater for beta-reading and enabling my Dark side. ;)

**** So, it’s come to this. After everything they’ve done, the deaths they’ve witnessed and caused, the pasts they’ve killed, to achieve peace—a lasting one this time, everyone agrees, despite the costs—out of this, they’ve forged an alliance so unexpected that those who look too closely at it can only wince and pray that the Force might preserve that bond and keep it safe. The former Supreme Leader and the ex-Resistance Jedi, and those who follow them, have become allies. It would be laughable, if it hadn’t actually happened. 

Kylo can hardly believe it himself, but even now the remaining officers on both sides are arguing about what the new galactic alliance should be called. And then there are the witnesses. Adherents. Millions of them. The naïve think Rey has tamed Kylo. The cynical are certain he’s schooled a powerful ally into submission.

Everyone is wrong.

Kylo and Rey stand face-to-face, in the flesh, on Ahch-To, which is only right: this is where, more than a year ago, they consecrated their strange union with the touch of their fingertips. After that, the hut in which they’d made their silent vows was only the first thing to fall apart. Everything else crumbled, too, because of the brush of their hands. But death brings forth life, doesn’t it? Kylo said that out loud to her, once. At the time it was a lie. Rey showed him the truth.

On Ahch-To, they’re alone for the first time since he offered her the galaxy. Now she has it—the galaxy, and more. On her terms.

What are the terms between the two of them now? 

They stand near the edge of the cliff overlooking his uncle’s submerged X-wing starfighter, in the shadow of his father’s lightweight freighter. But the specters of things past ought to have no sway over him. He focuses on their surroundings, and Rey.

This planet is nothing but water and sky, with a little earth in between to hold it together. Salt spray spatters his eyelids. He blinks. Droplets of water glisten on Rey’s freckled cheeks and the fresh scar along her jaw, an angry welt in the dying warmth of sunset. Kylo has the wild thought that her injury is the underline beneath the title of her war story. What does that make his scar? An exclamation point, he supposes. He subdues a sneer. Their story isn’t over, even if the war is.

Rey takes a breath but doesn’t speak, and he won’t be the first to break the silence, lest it be seen as begging. Or coercion. He doesn’t feel shy, or afraid (why would he, after all they’ve done?), but there’s a difference between indulging a fantasy through the Force and consummating a bond in the flesh. 

Which they both know they’re here to do.

He’s had her many times, of course, and she’s had him. When first he dreamed of her and woke to her in the bond, he hadn’t been sure who had summoned whom, or whether the Force had brought them together of its own will. He hadn’t cared, nor had she.

As Kylo, he’d hissed his filthy intentions against her teeth, her ankles crossed behind his neck while he drove into her, his own body as coiled and dangerous as a scorpion’s stinger. As Ben, he’d clutched her hips to his as she rode him, and afterwards he’d implored her never to leave, while childish tears rolled into his ears. Worse yet, Ben had made promises Kylo was sure he’d never keep…but then…he had.

She’d been two people, too, though neither she nor Kylo knew the name of her mirror self. The woman called Rey could mount him with a smile as blinding as the morning sun shining down on a dark lake, making him shine, too. She could also weep quietly against his shoulder as she told him to crush her beneath him, to teach her that she wasn’t alone anymore. Ben (or was it Kylo?) swore he’d free her ( _ from this pain _ ), but all he knew how to do was fuck her harder, or gentler, or slower, it didn’t matter, it was all the same to him, though it was different every night. 

The other part of her, though—the nameless, dark reflection—commanded him to control her (but who  _ was  _ in control, exactly?), and he gladly complied, gripping both her wrists in one hand, slicking his other fingers in his mouth, and drawing out her pleasure until she begged for his cock. Her dark self in turn drew fealty from Ben as easily as breath takes seeds from a dandelion.

Night after night, almost each night, in every iteration they came to each other. Sometimes there was balance, one Dark, one Light. But sometimes it was Rey and Ben, or Kylo and the mirror version of Rey. It didn’t much matter. Every union satisfied, yet never felt complete. And so it went.

The silence thrums between them. He doesn’t need to fill it, but who is he kidding? He’s not a patient man. It’ll be dark soon, and they ought to seek shelter in one of the huts around which those fishlike busybodies buzz. As if in response to his thought, Rey’s eyes drift to one of the structures, but dart back to him when he speaks.

“We don’t have to stay together. Now that it’s finished.”

Rey’s eyes round, mouth dropping open. He stifles a wince at his own brusqueness. 

“But we  _ are  _ together,” she replies, as though it were as obvious as the sky darkening above them.

Able to breathe again, he merely nods. He’d felt it, during the hundreds of nights they’d stolen away to the privacy of their quarters and reached across the galaxy for each other. There was probably a better way to ask if she’d felt it, too, and definitely a better time than now…but Kylo has never been much good at talking. Anyhow, she’s given him the answer he wants.

“What do I call you?” she asks. Her eyes glimmer darkly, and he knows she means more than a name.

He’s never tried to call her anything else but Rey, even though that name seems inadequate now. “I’m yours. Call me whatever you like.”

She lets that sink in. Doesn’t reject the idea. The darkness in her eyes softens.

“When I met you,” she goes on, “you were Kylo. Later you showed me Ben. But you’re really neither.”

“I know.”

A hesitation. She’s afraid. “I don’t recognize who I am anymore.”

_ Is that all? _ “It doesn’t matter who you are. Not to me.”

After a moment, a nod: she knows, too.

That settles something, and nothing at all. But the tension has broken a little, so they shoulder their packs and trudge along the winding path, stepping around curious porgs and disapproving Caretakers finishing their upkeep for the night. Ahch-To’s salty climate, Rey had informed him on the  _ Falcon _ , is harsh and unforgiving, even against stone. Without millennia of constant attention, the huts they’re approaching would’ve eroded down to their foundations by now. They’re sacred spaces, she’d told him, but despite that they’re as functional as rooms at an inn, as all things should be. Revered and useful.

Kylo glances sidelong at Rey’s profile. His heart judders. She feels him looking and flushes, a tiny smile curving the corner of her lips.

They ascend the hill. It’s a relief to move away from the  _ Falcon _ , its air stale with ghosts and too many names. Smuggler. Rebel. Princess. General. Father. Mother. 

( _ Son _ .)

No.

A darkness from somewhere on the island tugs at him. He knows what it is; long ago, Rey told him. Its maw gapes wide enough that he feels he could fall in, even from where he walks on the rocky path.  He mustn’t misstep. He’s only safe if he keeps Rey in his peripheral vision, like a child stepping over cracks in duracrete, his superstitious caution the only deterrent to disaster. The lake within the hole beckons, even though he can’t see it. It mirrors the first evening stars winking down on them, the black reflection fixing the heavens in place. The sky will be as black soon. The constant sky. Day or night, it doesn’t change. Does it?

Fresh wind whips his hair back from his face as they near a hut where a familiar Force signature strangles him. The twin surges of anger and adrenaline gush from throat to extremities. He suppresses the instinct to draw his lightsaber. Luke is  _ dead _ . Another in a long line who fell because of Kylo. Because of Rey. But regret has flavored his rage for so long that he can’t tell the two apart anymore. Anyhow, rage is easier to maintain. Regret requires…other action.

“How much farther?” he snaps.

“Why, do you have another pressing engagement?”

Despite his agitation, he wants to kiss the edge of her smirk to see what it will turn into. 

Rey’s footsteps slow as she reaches the hovel where her old Force signature reaches toward them like a lover’s embrace after a long absence. It feels peculiar, familiar yet unknown, because Rey has changed so drastically since she last slept here. So has he. Does she recognize her own old signature, now, after everything? What about Kylo’s, draping him like the tattered cloak he wears? Has his signature ripened, or rotted? 

The Caretakers have rebuilt the ruins of her hut, of course. This island goes on, despite everything. Perhaps even Kylo won’t be able to destroy it.

They enter the dwelling and deposit their packs and lightsabers inside the doorway. Rey pulls some flint from a nook in the wall and fiddles with the pile of sticks in the center of the swept earthen floor. Kylo rummages in his pack for rations, glancing at her while he does so, but she shakes her head and he abandons it. Both of them had grown skittish on the  _ Falcon _ as they neared Ahch-To; to ease their nerves, she’d told him about the island’s inhabitants while they ate. He tucks the pack away again and stands awkwardly, taking in the small bed, the single chair and table, the rounded roofline so like that of his sleeping quarters when he was a learner…

Soon the wood crackles, a handful of flame. She turns to face him, and it’s definitely Rey. She’s uncertain but determined to get this right. He doesn’t want to kiss her until she invites him to, but her lips are parted, ready—

“How long until the Younglings arrive?”

A flinch detonates deep within him, and only partially from her decision to talk shop now, of all times, when they’re finally in private. “Let’s not use that antiquated word.  _ Youngling _ .” He’d never been young, had he? How insulting, to call someone that.

“Students, then.”

“Better.”

“What other names should we retire?” Rey asks, pulling the chair toward the fire and sitting. “Do you have a list? Aside from Younglings.”

Kylo removes his cloak, spreads it on the packed earth, and sits on it across from her with arms wrapped around his knees, the fire at their sides. “As a matter of fact, I think we should kill them all. The  _ names _ ,” he clarifies when her eyes widen. “Padawan.” He shudders. “Master. Apprentice. Jedi. Sith. Knight.” He chews his lip, but he must say this name, too: “Ren. All of them. The names are meaningless.”

“How will we denote progression of skill?”

He removes his boots and his socks, wiggles his pale feet, and thinks. “With cookies.” Ben looks and catches the ghost of a smile before she hides it.

“And failure?”

“…Also cookies.” Ah. There’s the smile for real. He returns it, his chest crackling along with the fire.

The moment hangs between them and he doesn’t know what else to say.

“FN—” He sighs. Does  _ everyone _ need two names? “ _ Finn _ will bring the first students in three days.”

“They’ll trickle in forever, I hope,” Rey says as she toes off her boots, flexes and points her socked feet near the fire. “The more we reach out, the more we’ll find.”

_ Reach out with your feelings _ , Luke had instructed him, ignorant of the darkness that engulfed him, and of another Master ( _ a dead name for a dead monster _ ) who would someday yank the end of that tether and wrap it around Rey’s and Ben’s necks.

It has taken over a year to turn a leash into a lifeline.

The bond vibrates between them as if to shake him back to the here and now. He looks quickly at Rey. Of course she feels it, too.

“I never know what that’s supposed to mean,” she says, her voice reverent. 

A scoff erupts before he can cap it. “What does the Force  _ ever _ mean?” 

In response, her eyes blaze. Anger? Or fear? A challenge? His defenses rise, titanium against her solar flares, and melt under her gaze as quickly as they’re erected. Ben wants to reach for her, to make some pretty speech to tamp out this fire, whatever it is. Kylo refuses.

Kylo and the mirror of Rey just sit and stare at each other. His teeth grind. Her knuckles are white.

This isn’t how he meant for this to go. How can he feel so differently now, yet act the same as ever? The bond trembles, a dangerous frequency that he should know better than to ignore. He wants to weep. He cannot weep.

He takes her hand. It’s already reaching for his. Their fingers interlace.

This is not the tentative touch of fingertips that made the galaxy rattle on its shelf. Nor is it the outstretched hand, rejected, that tumbled the planets to the floor. It’s hands working together, compelled by one mind, as they were in the throne room when it all hung in the balance and hadn’t yet fallen, as later when they’d picked up the pieces and put them back in place.

Their palms press together, and it’s like coming home. He exhales.

“When I lived on Jakku,” Rey says, eyes closed, her voice barely louder than the wood popping beside them and the wind whistling over the domed roof, “I felt so alone. You felt it, you knew. You were alone, too.” 

Her eyes open and meet his. Does she know he needs her to say this? Does it matter? 

“I met you, and I wasn’t alone anymore…though it took a while for me to admit that,” she chuckles.

Doesn’t he know it. He squeezes her hand.

“But then there was this  _ new _ loneliness.” Her brow furrows. “We were together, but not together. Working alongside each other, but separated, too far apart, for too long. And every night…” Her cheeks redden; she doesn’t look away. He feels her burning, low within his own body. “It wasn’t enough to dream you. To wish. To  _ think _ I felt you. Did I? It was something, but nothing.” Her breath huffs out. Talking isn’t working. “And yet it was  _ everything _ . But I want—”

“I want it, too.” 

Unable to wait any longer, he presses a kiss to the back of her hand, and the heady rush from the contact makes his eyelids flutter closed. He lets his mouth linger as he inhales her scent—the ocean, the desert, a mechanic’s shop, the finest wine—and traces her freckles and tendons with his lips, finds the pulse point of her wrist. It’s racing.

Never again will he lose himself, lose her. She’s too necessary, his divine beloved. 

When he looks up into her face, her eyes are dark with desire, lips parted, her hips practically squirming in the seat. He kneels, pushes her knees apart, and rises between her legs as he takes her jaw in his hands.

_ It’s only a kiss _ , Kylo might’ve lied. But Ben knows. Spirit needs flesh, just as the Force needs a physical vessel to bring its will to action. 

Their tongues wind together for the first time, and for the thousandth. He knows what to do.

His hands look huge on her body, but it arches to meet them. Breasts, abdomen, groin—the strain of her muscles toward him tells him more than words ever could. Her fingers rake through his hair, cup his face tenderly, tug at his pelvis. The chair she’s still on is all wrong for this. He huffs in frustration, pulls her onto his lap, and is gratified by her moan when she feels him, hard and ready, against her.

Then Rey grinds into him and he loses all thought. She takes over, kissing him, cradling his face, holding his hips still while she moves, then letting them buck as she reaches for the fasteners of his shirt. She remembers everything. She wastes no time.

His thumbs tuck into the belt at her waist, and he has it unfastened and thrown aside just as she reaches the hem of his shirt and yanks it free of his trousers. For a few seconds their arms get in each other’s way as each tries to pull the other’s shirt off. With a growl he shrugs out of his, the undershirt, too, and tugs hers off roughly, loosening her fabric arm wraps as he does so. It’s tedious work but he spirals one off, then the other, because he wants all of her. As soon as both limbs are free, she removes the band covering her breasts.

He takes her nipple into his mouth, squeezing the other breast as hard as he knows she likes, and smiles when he feels her break into a sudden sweat. He works on her slowly, alternating sides, blowing a whisper of cool air where he’s left her skin wet. She shivers. Her thighs tremble.

With a hand at her nape and one at her lower spine, he has her on her back where he can peel away her leggings, underwear, and socks. 

And there she is, sprawled across his old cloak, breathing hard and watching him, propped up on her elbows with firelight dancing across her body just as it did over her face the first night they touched across the galaxy, so long ago, so far away. 

She’s ready, he can see it in her eyes, feel it in the heat shimmering from the center of her longing, mirrored against his own. But he wants to make this last. He stretches out before her, wraps his hands around her thighs, and bows his head. Against her body his tongue speaks a new language, one that knows her unknown name ( _ my love _ ,  _ my love _ ) over and over again, until she cries out both of his, she’s so close.

Not yet.

He stands to remove everything else, then lowers himself onto her as she wriggles her hips to find him, and he plunges.

How is it possible to fill and be filled at the same time? He is her vessel, and she is his. The bond sings at their joining, cacophonous harmonics he’s never felt before, never known existed. It’s nearly too much to bear. Rey clutches at him, she feels it, and her eyes search his, deeper and deeper, seeking a mooring, the safety she already knows is there.

Slowly, never taking his eyes from hers—they’re lighter than he remembers from before, or maybe it’s the firelight, but they’re almost golden, like riches, like honey—he finds the lingering pressure and angle that pleases her. Clutching his arms, she wraps a leg around his lower back, braces the other foot against the ground to meet his thrusts with her own.

Almost too quickly she unravels. It’s his undoing. He follows, his body shuddering as he captures her mouth. His kisses punctuate each of his harsh breaths, bracket her incoherent murmurs.

When the aftershocks have subsided, he collapses onto her, his face against her sweaty shoulder. Loose, damp tendrils of her hair tickle his cheek and nose. He can’t stop kissing her neck. She wraps her other leg around his back and they remain joined, unwilling to move, unable to do more than breathe in this moment. Her fingers snake into his hair, her breath hot at his temple. She’s shaking. So is he. Reluctantly, he shifts to one side with an arm and a leg still draped over her, his torso rounded into her body, forehead tucked against her jaw. She turns her head and presses her lips to his brow. 

“What do I call you?” she asks again. She’s still panting. Her breath ruffles his damp hair.

He kisses her freckled shoulder. Thinks. “ _ My love _ .”

“Should we have the students call you that, too?” The smile in her voice reaches a part of him the fire cannot.

“We’ve got three days to decide,” he says, basking.

It’s all the same to him.

  
  



End file.
